Designing Antiferromagnetic Spin-1/2 Chains in Janus Fullerene Nanoribbons

Bo Peng; Michele Pizzochero

doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c06318

Designing Antiferromagnetic Spin-1/2 Chains in Janus Fullerene Nanoribbons

Bo Peng
, Michele Pizzochero

University of Cambridge
Harvard University

Research output: Contribution to journal › Letter › peer-review

Abstract

We designed antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 chains in fullerene nanoribbons by introducing extra C₆₀ cages at one of their edges. The resulting odd number of intermolecular bonds induces an unpaired π-electron and hence a quantized magnetic moment in otherwise nonmagnetic nanoribbons. We further reveal the formation of an antiferromagnetic ground state upon the linear arrangement of spin-1/2 C₆₀ cages that is insensitive to the specific structural motifs. Janus fullerene nanoribbons may offer an experimentally accessible route to magnetic edge states in low-dimensional carbon nanostructures, possibly serving as a versatile nanoarchitecture for scalable spin-based devices and the exploration of many-body quantum phases.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	6034-6039
Number of pages	6
Journal	Nano Letters
Volume	26
Issue number	18
Early online date	1 May 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c06318
Publication status	Published - 13 May 2026

Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Xu He at the University of Liège for helpful discussions on computing magnetic interaction parameters. B.P. acknowledges support from Magdalene College Cambridge for a Nevile Research Fellowship and from the Materials for Quantum Network (M4QN) for a laboratory exchange grant. The calculations were performed using resources provided by the Cambridge Service for Data Driven Discovery (CSD3) operated by the University of Cambridge Research Computing Service (www.csd3.cam.ac.uk), provided by Dell EMC and Intel using Tier-2 funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (capital grant EP/T022159/1), and DiRAC funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (http://www.dirac.ac.uk), as well as with computational support from the UK Materials and Molecular Modelling Hub, which is partially funded by EPSRC (EP/T022213/1, EP/W032260/1 and EP/P020194/1), for which access was obtained via the UKCP consortium and funded by EPSRC grant ref EP/P022561/1.

Keywords

first-principles
monolayer fullerene networks
nanoribbons
spin chain

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Bioengineering
General Chemistry
General Materials Science
Condensed Matter Physics
Mechanical Engineering

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Cite this

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AB - We designed antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 chains in fullerene nanoribbons by introducing extra C60 cages at one of their edges. The resulting odd number of intermolecular bonds induces an unpaired π-electron and hence a quantized magnetic moment in otherwise nonmagnetic nanoribbons. We further reveal the formation of an antiferromagnetic ground state upon the linear arrangement of spin-1/2 C60 cages that is insensitive to the specific structural motifs. Janus fullerene nanoribbons may offer an experimentally accessible route to magnetic edge states in low-dimensional carbon nanostructures, possibly serving as a versatile nanoarchitecture for scalable spin-based devices and the exploration of many-body quantum phases.

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Designing Antiferromagnetic Spin-1/2 Chains in Janus Fullerene Nanoribbons

Abstract

Acknowledgements

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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